Exemplarism -- the view that exemplary people, whom we admire, are the bearers of our moral concepts -- presents considerable challenges to the (widely-assumed) place of moral "theory" in how we learn to be moral. Exemplarism has been garnered by Amy Olberding to articulate a Confucian approach to moral learning. This paper extends…

This research proposes a new model for Educational Leadership and Teacher Preparation Programs through a "Practitioner-Based Mentor-Teacher Candidate Model", which is intended to be beneficial to both the aspiring school leader as the evaluator and mentor and the preservice teacher as the recipient of the feedback. With the shift to…

The purpose of this mixed-method study is to examine if teachers are receiving effective feedback from their administrators and what school leaders can do to improve the feedback and coaching they provide. The conceptual framework that supports this study is based upon the research by Romano (2014), Ficke (2020), Tuma et al. (2018), and Nasatir…

We examined what and how experienced (mentor coaches) and novice coaches (coach participants) noticed as they analyzed a vignette of a coaching interaction between a coach and a teacher. We modified the van Es (2011) Learning to Notice Framework for a coaching context to analyze What and How coaches notice. We collected data from ten mentor…

In this paper we study the impact on student absenteeism of a large, school-based community crime monitoring program that employed local community members to monitor and report crime on designated city blocks during times when students traveled to and from school. We find that the program resulted in a 0.58 percentage point (8.5 percent) reduction…

Purpose: Our study focused on identifying measurable constructs of a restorative classroom and appropriate metrics to measure those constructs through content validity analysis of a direct observation tool. The tool was designed to assess restorative practices implementation in the classroom in the context of professional development supporting…

This paper explores the challenges of filming as a qualitative research method in practical school subjects. We exemplify with an observation study using video data collected from lessons in Home Economics, but the issues we discuss are also relevant for other subjects with practical elements, such as Arts, Crafts, Music, Physical Education, and…

Critical reflection is pivotal for enhancing practice in peer observation of teaching (POT). Our analysis of educators' reflections in a developmental POT program revealed a deficiency in the level of critical reflection. In this paper, we reflect on the reasons behind this shortfall and changes made to enhance the scaffolding of critical…

Feedback plays an indispensable role in pre-service teachers' microteaching practice. It provides essential information about their microteaching performance, which is of great significance in their reflection and improvement. As AI and teaching analytics advance, feedback is no longer exclusively human-generated. AI technologies are increasingly…

Students have powerful but underutilized perspectives on the impact of educators' professional learning. When students are directly engaged in providing feedback, they can offer unique insights into how professional learning translates into classroom practice and affects their learning experience. Incorporating student feedback also helps…

In this paper, we explore the critical practice of making sense of students' mathematical ideas. We extend previous research by studying stances prospective teachers adopt, the extent or depth to which they do so, and the types of prospective teachers making sense of students' mathematical ideas. Analyzing the responses of 123 prospective teachers…

Theoretical Background: Previous studies indicate that students' learning motivation varies across learning situations and is influenced by situational characteristics such as teaching behaviour. We focus on instructional clarity as one factor that may influence expectancies and task values. Aims and Research Questions: This study combines a…

In education settings, treatments are often non-randomly assigned to clusters, such as schools or classrooms, while outcomes are measured for students. This research design is called the clustered observational study (COS). We examine the consequences of common support violations in the COS context. Common support violations occur when the…

Wildflower Schools, a network of decentralized "shopfront" Montessori schools, began in 2014, when Sep Kamvar, a MIT Media Lab professor, was unable to find a preschool for his son that fit his needs, and ended up partnering with two veteran Montessori educators, Mary Rockett and Katelyn Shore, to start a school. Wildflower's work is…

Makerspaces, especially in their diverse proliferating forms, support a broad variety of learning outcomes. There is rich work in attempting to understand and describe these learning goals. Yet, there is a lack of support for practitioners and educators to assess the learning in events and programming at makerspaces (and similar environments)…